Tag Archives: Torture

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

Emberfall is crumbling fast, torn between those who believe Rhen is the rightful prince and those who are eager to begin a new era under Grey, the true heir. Grey has agreed to wait two months before attacking Emberfall, and in that time, Rhen has turned away from everyone—even Harper, as she desperately tries to help him find a path to peace.

Meanwhile, Lia Mara struggles to rule Syhl Shallow with a gentler hand than her mother. But after enjoying decades of peace once magic was driven out of their lands, some of her subjects are angry Lia Mara has an enchanted prince and a magical scraver by her side. As Grey’s deadline draws nearer, Lia Mara questions if she can be the queen her country needs.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Stabbing
  • War themes

A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer

A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer

The curse is finally broken, but Prince Rhen of Emberfall faces darker troubles still. Rumours circulate that he is not the true heir and that forbidden magic has been unleashed in Emberfall. Although Rhen has Harper by his side, his guardsman Grey is missing, leaving more questions than answers.

Rumoured to be the heir, Grey has been on the run since he destroyed Lilith. He has no desire to challenge Rhen–until Karis Luran once again threatens to take Emberfall by force. Her own daughter Lia Mara sees the flaws in her mother’s violent plan, but can she convince Grey to stand against Rhen, even for the good of Emberfall?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Sexism
  • Indentured servitude
  • Child sexual slavery & sex work, implied
  • Arranged marriage discussed
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Pregnancy mentioned
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Dead bodies
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture, on-page
  • Graphic whipping
  • Knife violence & stabbing
  • Imprisonment
  • Hostage situation
  • War themes
  • Animal death, on-page
  • Hunting

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan 

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind.

Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the emperor’s son, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the prince… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Misogyny
  • Attempted sexual assault
  • Sexual harassment
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Torture mentioned
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Fire
  • War themes

The Kindred by Alechia Dow

The Kindred by Alechia Dow

The Kindred by Alechia Dow

Joy Abara knows her place. A commoner from the lowly planet Hali, she lives a simple life—apart from the notoriety that being Kindred to the nobility’s most infamous playboy brings.

Duke Felix Hamdi has a plan. He will exasperate his noble family to the point that they agree to let him choose his own future and finally meet his Kindred face-to-face.

Then the royal family is assassinated, putting Felix next in line for the throne…and accused of the murders. Someone will stop at nothing until he’s dead, which means they’ll target Joy, too.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Body-shaming & fatmisia
  • Alcohol use
  • Blood depiction
  • Physical injury
  • Death
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Captivity
  • Poverty themes
  • War themes
  • Mind control & loss of autonomy

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

While flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England, American ATA pilot and amateur poet, Rose Justice, is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbr ck, the notorious women’s concentration camp. Trapped in horrific circumstances, Rose finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery and friendship of her fellow prisoners. But will that be enough to endure the fate that’s in store for her?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Rape mentioned
  • Torture
  • Explosions
  • Physical assault
  • Genocide
  • War themes & the Holocaust
  • Concentration camps

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun.

When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Antisemitism & Nazism
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Smoking
  • Death of a friend
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
  • Plane crash
  • World War Two

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India’s independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child. However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other ‘midnight’s children’ all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem’s story is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Child abuse
  • Incest
  • Cheating
  • Alcohol & drug abuse
  • Torture

The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory by Richard Powers

An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another.

These four, and five other strangers – each summoned in different ways by trees – are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent’s few remaining acres of virgin forest.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Cheating
  • Suicide
  • Police brutality
  • Torture
  • Asphyxiation
  • Eco-terrorism

Basketful of Heads by Joe Hill

Basketful of Heads by Joe Hill and illustrated by Leomacs & Riccardo La Bella

June Branch visits her boyfriend, Liam, on Brody Island for a relaxing last weekend of summer. After an escaped group of criminals breaks into the house that June and Liam are watching, Liam is taken by them. June grabs a strange Viking axe and flees from the intruders. When one of the attackers finds her, she swings the axe and takes off his head, which rolls away and begins to babble in terror. For June to uncover the truth, she’ll need to hear the facts straight from the mouths of her attackers, with…or without their bodies attached.

Collects issues #1-7.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisic slur
  • Rape mentioned
  • Forced sex work mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Murder
  • Torture

Horns by Joe Hill

Horns by Joe Hill

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist slurs
  • Racism & racial slurs
  • Homomisia
  • Paedophilia
  • Rape
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide mentioned
  • Torture